Anne-Marie Slaughter och debatten om kvinnor ”having it all”

Only recently have I begun to appreciate the extent to which many young professional women feel under assault by women my age and older. After I gave a recent speech in New York, several women in their late 60s or early 70s came up to tell me how glad and proud they were to see me speaking as a foreign-policy expert. A couple of them went on, however, to contrast my career with the path being traveled by “younger women today.” One expressed dismay that many younger women “are just not willing to get out there and do it.” Said another, unaware of the circumstances of my recent job change: “They think they have to choose between having a career and having a family.”

For all the debate sparked in the popular media by Anne-Marie Slaughter’s article “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All” published a few months ago in The Atlantic, aside from the demur musings of the occasional establishment poodle, men have been utterly excluded from the discussion. Some men will shrug ambivalently, but for a growing number, particularly the half of formerly married men in Ms. Slaughter’s generation who have experienced divorce, why there’s no room for our opinions on this issue is a question of growing concern.

”Unfortunately, Slaughter can’t seem to see the issue through to its logical conclusion, instead clinging to the notion that more social engineering will deliver women into the magical promised land of limitless opportunity. She takes what could have been a helpful article putting things in their proper perspective for women who have to make a choice between family and career, and turns it into a feminist crusade for more power, more control, more everything.”

”There is nothing more telling about this article than that it both begins and ends with demands for support from men. That’s feminism in a nutshell: “We want it all, so you have to give it to us!Well, here’s a little dose of reality for feminists: we couldn’t give you all you wanted even if we tried. We are mere mortals, and we recognize that. Furthermore, we are starting to recognize that the more we give you the more you’ll want, and we’re getting tired.”

”When I’m at work and away from my kids, my heart aches as I look at the pictures my wife texts me. Here we are eating ice cream in the park! Look at us with the Easter bunny! Aren’t they cute in this little pool?! Meanwhile, I’m alone in a quiet office trying to finish my next book or preparing for tomorrow’s show. But when I’m with them, I can’t totally forget about the work I could be doing to help give them everything they need.”

Kommentarer

From the standpoint of pragmatism and belief in self-sufficiency Slaughter’s article begged sharp criticism for failing to properly skewer the underlying feminist ideology that a great many men (and women) identify as the chief culprit deceiving today’s women into recklessly chasing whatever unrealistic liberal arts degree, inflexible career, biologically difficult family choices, or extravagant lifestyle she’s been told she can’t be happy without; driving her to pursue goals in each of these areas that may deeply conflict for her personally with no sense of the personal risk involved.

”Incredibly, having robbed her of responsibility and having seen that the desired ends hadn’t been achieved, feminism doubled down and continued to try to absolve her of even more responsibility in the mistaken idea that doing so would finally achieve empowerment. But rather than being empowering, removing all our responsibility turns us into spoiled and entitled children with less and less ability to control our outcomes, and therefore less ability to find the contentment we desire.”

”Conversely women like Slaughter are rarely ones who want for any basic necessities. And they are wholly mislead in the belief their situation is representative of other women. The kind of luxury presumed as the birthright of all women in this age of consumption has never been realistically attainable by even a sizeable minority of women (or men) at any time throughout human history. In fact even today for people of any gender who are searching for well-being and contentment, a common element of spiritual practice in all religions and for the non-religious in all meditative or psychological therapies, is detaching from love of the material and acknowledgement of thankfulness instead. Rather than allowing ourselves to believe we need some possession or outcome and not allowing ourselves to be happy until we get it, having a sense of well-being in our historically ‘without infinite wealth’ existences has always meant being grateful for whatever little we already have. It has also meant honoring our gifts. In other words “we must tend our to gardens”; we must devote ourselves to carrying out our duties to the best of our abilities in order to derive satisfaction from them.”

Just den sista meningen är en bärande idé i Bhagavad-Gita:

”Your right is in action only, never to the fruits;
let not the fruit of action be your motive
nor let your attachment be to inaction.”